Obama Administration Putting Off Budget Update

The Associated Press is reporting that the Obama Administration is putting of releasing the annual mid-summer budget update until mid-August:

The White House is being forced to acknowledge the wide gap between its once-upbeat predictions about the economy and today’s bleak landscape.

The administration’s annual midsummer budget update is sure to show higher deficits and unemployment and slower growth than projected in President Barack Obama’s budget in February and update in May, and that could complicate his efforts to get his signature health care and global-warming proposals through Congress.

The release of the update – usually scheduled for mid-July – has been put off until the middle of next month, giving rise to speculation the White House is delaying the bad news at least until Congress leaves town Aug. 7 on its summer recess.

The administration is pressing for votes before then on its $1 trillion health care initiative, which lawmakers are arguing over how to finance.

The question is why? Polling numbers showing the President popularity slippy and rising concern about the deficit explain part of it but the AP’s report hint at the reason. The administration and democratic leaders in the house and senate pushing to the President’s signature policy initiatives on health care and cap and trade. Simply put the Obama Administration can’t afford to have another report showing how badly they’ve miscalculated the size of the deficit hit the street while they’re pushing a deficit-busting health care program.

While both healthcare and cap-and-trade look to be in various degrees of trouble, some savvy Capitol Hill watchers make this point to me: Democrats look at failure to do something about healthcare as an Extinction Level Event, with a failure on cap-and-trade also incredibly damaging, particularly with the Dem base. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told wavering Dems that a cap-and-trade failure was a dagger in the Obama presidency. She pushed them to the wall. Healthcare even more so. Expect a full-court press in the Senate on both. At the same, either of those issues slipping into 2010 is fatal to their chances. The next five months may make or break the Obama presidency.

He’s exactly right, if Democrats can’t get the President’s health care and cap and trade proposals through the House and Senate this year, both proposals are effectively dead… Call and write you Senators and Congressman and politely but firmly tell them to vote know on both.